


The Jasmine Cycle

by backbones, writeclub



Series: The Tea Leaf Project [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Getting Together, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:09:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26223928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/backbones/pseuds/backbones, https://archiveofourown.org/users/writeclub/pseuds/writeclub
Summary: One rises with the moon; one rises with the sun.So similar, so different.And, as always, the world seeks balance.--20 fics set in the same world, written by two writers.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: The Tea Leaf Project [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1904539
Kudos: 14





	1. Deep Sea Baby

_Four Years Old_

Katara wades under the water’s surface, body growing cold and tired. She had slipped from above, through the cracks in the ice, and she hasn’t been able to find the exit since.

The ice is too dark––she can’t see anything above, not even a shadow. Instead she pounds her fists, swallowing water, then swallowing more, until her lungs feel too full––and then she falls, like a stone.

There’s no fight left in her. She knows she’s dying. She waves her hands, but her clothes are weighing her down, and even the sharp light dimming above offers no solace. All she’s doing is sinking. She’s numb, numb from the cold and lack of air, and that scares her. 

All she can do now is watch the icebergs around her loom, giants in waiting. 

She’s lived here for so long already. The Southern Water Tribe is her home, always will be. And yet the ice here still feels like giants, living things that move under the dark waters––things that only know how to follow the current, only know how to consume ships when they dare to get too close. _Dark, dark, dark_ , she thinks, _so deep down here_.

And then there’s hands appearing from the shadows, pulling her close. She struggles uselessly, and the hands pull more, and then she recognizes them––Sokka. His face comes into view, so like her own, unmistakable. Eyes wide with fear. 

She looks above. She finds a spec of light, through the fingers of her outstretched hand. And then suddenly the ice above them is bursting––light flooding in the shape of a star.

___

“You did that,” Sokka tells her later, after they’re bundled in Gran-Gran’s hut, just inside their village. He whips around to demonstrate to their grandmother, arm extending in a less-graceful fist. “You made the ice break. It just––broke! And you––you didn’t touch it.”

Gran-Gran is still pale from finding them, nearly sick from worry, but she still finds a smile in her. “A waterbender,” she says. “Another waterbender.”

“I thought they were all gone,” says Sokka. 

“Not anymore,” says Gran-Gran, turning to warm more water. Something in her voice scares her, but she doesn’t know why. When she turns around, she smiles again, and everything feels like it’s going to be okay.

___

Katara wakes in the middle of the night, a nightmare she can’t remember driving her sick. Gran-Gran holds her close, and together, alone, they watch the light inside her hut flicker. 

“I’m safe here,” Katara says, finally believing Gran-Gran’s words. Her gloved hand waves over the candle at perfect distance. “It’s so light.”

“Dark follows us, even here,” says Gran-Gran, with a smile. “There is dark everywhere.” She points around the hut, where the shadows move with the blinking flame. “But even so––there is both. Always, both.”

She cradles her face in her hands. Wrinkled and warm, safe and warm. Fire here. Safe, light. Warm. So warm.

_Fourteen Years Old_

It hasn’t been long since Zuko took Katara to her mother’s killer, and the unease makes them silent, even when they’re with Appa. The wind around them rushes as they climb in altitude, the purple clouds parting to allow them through. 

“It’s getting dark,” Zuko says, finally, from behind her. She turns to see him looking up, straight up, watching the clouds turn and turn. He’s right; it’s getting dark, she realizes. She can even see the moon now, growing more visible in the fading sunset. 

“It’ll be fine,” Katara says. “Appa always knows where to go, even when it’s dark.” Her mouth feels dry. She didn’t realize it had been so long since she spoke.

A hint of a smile shows on Zuko’s face. She doesn’t know why. Maybe it’s a trick of the light. “That’s amazing,” he says. He waves a hand above his head for emphasis, and she imagines he’s watching the stars, how they show between his fingers. It makes the shadows fall over his scar, and her heart squeezes.

“Quiet, too,” Katara says, under her breath. Everything there feels so still, even though nothing really is. The clouds move, so similar to the icebergs back at home; the air moves, a current all on its own. It’s like a sea in itself. 

“And you were going to do this alone?” Zuko asks, suddenly. 

“What do you mean?” she asks, eyebrows furrowing. She thought they were past this––that she let him come, and they could put that behind them. 

“No, I don’t mean it that way,” he says, quickly. His arms are out in surrender, and he drops them when she looks back again, confused. “I mean––ugh. I don’t know how to explain.” 

“Well, you have the rest of the night,” she said, huffing.

He crawls toward her, where she’s sitting closest to Appa’s head. He leans over the edge of the saddle, loose hair strands sticking to his forehead. It’s the moisture from being up there, in the clouds. It runs down his cheek, over his scar, and she has the sudden urge to wipe it from his eyes, to make it easier for him to see. It scares her. 

Zuko doesn’t notice, though. “It’s dark here,” he whispers to the air, letting the words find her in the wind. “I didn’t like the dark, even when I was a kid. I guess I sort of sensed I didn’t belong there. That part of my power was gone with it.”

“You rise with the sun,” Katara repeats. They’re his words from the Northern Water Tribe, from a time that felt so long ago, it didn’t feel like it was even in this lifetime.

“Yes,” he says, after a pause. There’s surprise in his voice, but she doesn’t know why. “I couldn’t imagine being in the dark here, alone.”

“I wouldn’t be. I would have Appa.” She swallows, looking ahead again. The stars flood around them, Yue bathing them in her moonlight. The sky is so black it looks blue, blue as ice. “Besides. Even when it’s dark, there’s still light here.” She pauses, the realization coming at the same time she speaks. “Balance.”

_Twenty-Four Years Old_

The sun rises on the other side of the Fire Lord’s palace just as Katara arrives. Fire Lord Zuko’s palace occupants open the door for her, her familiar face making them smile. 

As one leads her down the hall, Katara sees a new installment since she’s been gone: another pond, similar to the one on the other side of the palace grounds, except much larger. The water soaks in the orange and red light, jumping like it’s aflame. 

Her feet carry her until she finds herself standing in front of it, Zuko crouched along the edge. His red robes he’s wearing drift around him like the petals from a rose, the backs of his shoulders coated in gold. 

He turns, and she realizes his hair is down, too. Long and silky black, like his mother’s. He never leaves it down, not anymore, and it takes her aback. 

“You’re awake early,” she says anyway. 

“Of course I am,” he says, playfully. 

“A lot to do, I presume?” Katara asks.

He smirks. “Of course.” He coughs into his hand. “And I heard word––that you’d be here.” 

“Ah.” She turns, walking toward the edge of the pond. There the turtle ducks gathered, some still at Zuko’s feet, nipping at his clothes. It seems almost out of place––a regal man’s cloak, eaten by ducklings.

“How long has it been?” Zuko asks, suddenly. 

Katara rubs the back of her neck with a hand. “Six months, I think. It’s hard to tell when––”

“You’re traveling. I know.” They’ve both done a lot of that, after all, even when they were still children. And they weren’t children––not anymore. Every single time Katara comes back to visit, under the childish guise she’s delivering news even, she’s reminded. 

Age takes hold; they aren’t Avatars, where time can slumber. Katara hasn’t seriously looked in a mirror in months, but she can see it weighing on Zuko’s brow. He’s no child; he’s a man now. Saving the world doesn’t make one immortal, a spirit, someone to be worshipped. They were no moon, no sun. 

Zuko’s aged well. She’s told him as much. 

When they were kids, uncertainty was law. A deep sea, dark enough so they couldn’t find the light. But now that they’ve seen it, they know where the story ends. Maybe there were hiccups along the way; when Katara was gone for too long, working on peace abroad, while Zuko worked toward it at home. But they always met at the in-between. 

Zuko’s hand––his writing hand, calloused at the thumb––brushes her hair back, finding her cheek. His lips press to hers, the kind of kiss that reminds her of both a _goodbye_ and a _hello_. 

When you’re in love, when sometimes you’re apart for so long, it always feels like it’s the first time. She knows that now.

She cups his hand with her own, relishing in how they rock back and forth, stuck in an invisible tide. It brings her back to the memory, with Gran-Gran, all those years ago. One where she’s still shivering from the cold, choking for air after she finds the surface. Warmth. The sun, in the palm of a hand. _It’s here,_ she thinks. _It’s here._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: 3 places in time / i follow rivers - lykke li
> 
> thank you for starting this journey with us! we're going to be writing a ton of atla fics, and this one is going to be the home for our zutara fics. they're out of order, but they're all set within the same world. we have prompts for each fic, which we both write - so there will be two fics per prompt, 20 chapters total. for example: this chapter is mine, and the next, chapter 2, is writeclub's.
> 
> if you like, let us know! <3
> 
> -backbones


	2. why not always?

##  i. dark

It begins as a hunt for the last air nomad, the Avatar, the boy in the iceberg. But then, Zuko discovers, there’s  _ her _ . The unexpected Water Tribe girl with dark hair and eyes the color of all the seas Zuko has scoured, forever searching. 

Iroh might joke:  _ Searching for her, eh?  _ But  _ no, obviously not, Uncle. Don’t be crass _ . Searching for the Avatar, his honor, a way back to the family that casts him out. Much better things to look for than a Water Tribe girl.

_ But what if following her leads him to where he wants to go? _

When Zuko finds the necklace, he traces the jewel’s carving with a soft thumb, thoughtful. He could imagine how Uncle might call it a sign from the Spirit World. The sun turns the sky to fire as it sets, and Zuko is sure he has been left this clue for a reason. 

Later, when he shows Uncle, the old man smiles as if being reminded of some fond memory. Instead of commenting on the puppet strings of fate, he explains what Zuko holds in his hand is a traditional Water Tribe betrothal necklace. 

The softness of the jewel and the silk of the collar make sense, then. Not just an every day Water Tribe bauble, of fur or leather or wool. Instead: a lover’s gift. Delicate, meaningful.

_ Isn’t she kind of young for that?  _ Zuko asks as Uncle hands the trinket back to him. Wrapping the collar carefully around the pendant, Zuko watches Iroh shrug, but he can sense the dare in his Uncle’s voice when he asks:  _ She’s pretty enough for it, isn’t she?  _ In response, Zuko only scowls.

In the weeks that follow, Zuko finds the Avatar a handful of times, almost always with the girl. Whenever he sees her, he is reminded of the piece of her he carries with him. He wonders what she feels in its absence. 

On the one night he finds her alone—with the help of the merchant pirates—he finally shares their secret. Her small frame bound to the tree, the tree between their bodies, his fingers spreading the choker across her throat.

_ My mother’s necklace _ .

A hidden, near-forgotten part of Zuko flickers to life, suddenly. It is invisible, imperceptible on his face, but it is there. He knows that yearning. He could almost give her the necklace back, just for that.

And yet.

The final time Zuko finds her, he is in fact tracking  _ her  _ instead of the Avatar. He uses the necklace, a scent of her he can’t perceive fed to a creature ordained to hunt. 

Zuko does not let June’s jibes of  _ girlfriend  _ get to him, or tries. Uncle just laughs, as always.

When all is said and done and the necklace is lost along with the girl and the Avatar, Zuko finds himself regretting the wrong thing. That it is the Avatar returning her necklace, instead of him. He could follow them forever, he thinks, anyway.

##  ii. doom

As he is cast down into the prison of crystals beneath Ba Sing Se, Zuko expects Katara least of all. And yet she is there, among all the glistening green. What had Uncle said about destiny, so recently? It seems as if he finds himself where he is best only when he stops looking.

He finds her only when he stops following.

But, of course, she hates him.

_ The Fire Nation took my mother away from me. _

The sound of her sobs echoing through the cavern.

_ That’s something we have in common. _

He gains nothing from admitting this. Yet, when he looks up at her again, she has stopped, turned to him, tears in her eyes. A recognition. For a moment, they talk, and it is almost as if Zuko could be someone else. More so than any Earth Nation garb he’s worn the past few months, more than any other girl he’s spoken with. Katara makes him feel as if there’s another way. The destiny that Uncle Iroh promised might be out there if only Zuko would go looking for it.

Katara offers to heal his scar, to make him new again.  _ Maybe _ , he thinks,  _ just maybe.  _ Her fingers on his face—his eyes following hers as they take in the scarred flesh up close—and Zuko can’t remember the last time he was touched this way, if ever. The green glinting off her blue eyes, always like the sea.

But the past tracks him down, as it always does. The Avatar and Uncle. The crossroads of destiny. A chance at choosing to follow his own path, toward something good.

And then, Azula.

In the end, he follows his sister. 

One redemption at the cost of another.

Fire and water, the death of the Avatar, Katara’s hair falling around her tear-streaked face. The wave she makes, remarkable, knocking Zuko clear off his feet. How she carries herself above everything with water, death cradled in her arms.

Zuko follows her up and up and up with his eyes, his heart sinking as the distance thickens.

Azula is at his side before he has any more time to think. Honor restored, father’s love, the promise of an endless summer. Zuko does not look his Uncle in the eye. Whatever other paths Zuko had been presented, this is his choice to live with now.

The hero and the villain, but the end to a long journey. No more destiny to follow.

##  iii. honey

Running his fingers through the thick brown locks of his lover, Zuko whispers, “Do you remember when you were the first person to trust me?”

Katara, half asleep, knits her brow. “Yes, why?”

It has been years since then, the war won, balance restored, Avatar Aang leading the charge to a future that always should have been. They are young, still, building a world to be better, following in the footsteps of all the Avatars before, what was almost lost is found again.

This thing between him and Katara, Zuko knows, has been a long time coming. What will follow, too, is inevitable. 

And yet this moment, here, in bed with her, seems infinite. 

He cannot help but think of all the moments like this, before this, leading up to this: the glacier, the river, the crystal cave, a night outside her tent, the storm. The hundreds of hours worth of exchanged glances across a room of advisors to the Avatar. 

“I should have followed you, then,” he says, sweeping her hair back from her face with one hand as he props himself up with the opposite arm, cheek in his palm. His pale fingertips across Katara’s dark cheek. She groans softly—Katara has grown weary of dredging up this past, especially just before dawn when she wants to sleep—in annoyance, but Zuko only softens his voice and smiles.

“Should have taken your lead,” he adds, leaning down to brush his lips against her forehead. “Trusted myself, trusted you trusting me.”

Katara’s eyes open just as Zuko pulls his head back. When she looks up at him, Zuko can see the same deep waters as he always has. That beautiful unknown of those eyes, always questioning and fierce. Even now, half-asleep, she is all there and brazen. Amazingly irritated with him and pretty.

“Yes, well,  _ trust me  _ when I tell you I’m going to kill you if you wake me up again,” Katara retorts, pulling the silk sheets up and bunching them around her face as she closes her eyes again and tucks her head back down. Zuko huffs a laugh, patting her head in response.

“I rise with the sun, honey,” he reminds, and it is said with such fondness that Zuko feels as if this could go on forever, a love to follow through life. Even if he expects that Mai and Aang are waiting, even if this is secret, even if the unknown and unknowable is what has always led him here.

When Katara is sound asleep again, breathing easy, Zuko slips out of bed and walks to the palace balcony just as the first rays of sun slip over the horizon, drenching the sky. It’s a morning, just like any other, and Zuko wishes the same way he does—like some do on stars—for just this, always.


End file.
